Grant has quietly been working to transform herself into a performer that fits none of the roles invented for her previously by the church, the recording industry, and the media: not a petticoats-and-cowboy boots evangelical icon, nor a milquetoast Madonna, not a satanic sellout nor a stealth proselytizer.

Whereas Lennon tends to reject religion outright and U2 sings about its mysterious ways and at least partial un-knowability, Larry Norman represents a Christian conservatism both confident of its rightness and critical of those failing to embrace a particular definition of orthodoxy.

Chris Tomlin's rare distinction represents a first for the Christian music industry, and cements the dominance of the subcategory of Christian rock called Praise & Worship, of which Tomlin is the undisputed leader.